SCREENING LOG - 1/30/2006-2/06/2006

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Monty Clift? Bah, Groucho coulda been in A PLACE IN THE SUN

It took Matthieu Almaric a month to learn how to do this?

The rumors of Hong Sang-soo's misogyny were greatly understated

Of course Lars von Trier is not an egoist...

he's just psychotic

I know that look :-)

I know that longing :-(

And she's buying her swingset to heaven

Horse Feathers (1932, Norman Z. McLeod)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0023027
YES (#9 for 1932 between FREAKS and COUNTY HOSPITAL)

The Virgin Spring (1960, Ingmar Bergman)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053976
mixed

He Who Gets Slapped (1924, Victor Sjostrom)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0014972
TSPDT #815
yes (#10 for 1924 between THE LAST LAUGH and ENTR'ACTE)

Brigitte and Brigitte (1966, Luc Moullet)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060189/
yes

Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks, Part I: Rust I (2003, Wang Bing)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0389448
a long, exhausting yes (and we're only 1/4 of the way through) I think this is probably best viewed in a theater since it requires a kind of soaking into the environment. I'm not quite sure yet what makes this film truly distinctive other than sheer dogged determination to film everything. One thing I wonder about is structure -- maybe it's too early to say -- so far it seems to be going down along these tracks from one derelict factory community to another. I will say that I am really impressed by how embedded he is that he is able to follow Chinese men into the bathroom and they don't seem to care. (Of course if he could do that with the women I'd be REALLY impressed ).

Sawdust and Tinsel (1953, Ingmar Bergman)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0045848
TSPDT #816
YES (#5 for 1953 between THE NAKED SPUR and DUCK AMUCK)

Anatomy of a Relationship (1976, Luc Moullet, Antonietta Pizzorno)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072643/
YES (#3 for 1976 between IN THE REALM OF THE SENSES and TAXI DRIVER)

Kings and Queen (2004, Arnaud Desplechin)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0344273
YES (#5 for 2004 between MICHELANGELO'S GAZE and MOOLAADE)
Kudos to Wellspring for including in their DVD an interview with Desplechin -- the interviews with him and Amalric are wonderful extras. Arnaud seems like a guy you can really have fun with talking movies for hours -- and his enthusiasm for Truffaut makes me want to rewatch those films to see what I missed. It's interesting to think of KINGS AND QUEEN as a radical popular movie -- he obviously wants to tell a story that entertains and makes people laugh but at the same time twist things up a little. The ending bears that out the long consolation speech by Amalric to his would-be adopted son, which is like a TV movie ending gone haywire. I kind of wish that the kid could have said something to disrupt Amalric's speech, it felt a tad too self-assured and one-sided. I really saw this as a revisioning of the Rowlands/Cassavetes characters in LOVE STREAMS (which I think is an even better movie).

What I liked stylistically was his use of cuts -- he never settles into a fixed view of a given scene or moment. You wonder how many takes he took of each scene and he must have reset his camera a different way each time. And yet they say they worked very fast on this movie.

What's also remarkable for me is how it's such a writerly movie -- the story is so elaborate, the characters have all these backstories and cluttered relationships, but Desplechin is able to navigate through it all with such swiftness and grace, it never feels dead or on paper, it's very much alive.

The Day a Pig Fell Into the Well (1996, Hong Sang-soo)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116005
YES (#7 for 1996 between LONE STAR and JERRY MAGUIRE)

Epidemic (1987, Lars von Trier)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092972
yes

Medea (1988, Lars von Trier)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095607
mixed

Breaking the Waves (1996, Lars von Trier) second viewing
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115751
YES YES - more than ever (#1 for 1996)

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